Based on detailed analysis of thousands of confidential World Bank documents, this book demonstrates that the World Bank lies at the centre of the major changes in global education of our time. It outlines the evolution of World Bank lending policies in education, and assesses the policy impact of the Bank's educational projects, looking at how it has: shaped the economic and social policies of many governments, including policies that affect education been an influential proponent of the rapid expansion of (...) formal education systems around the world, financing much of that expansion been instrumental in forging those policies that see education as a precursor to modernisation served as a major purveyor of Western ideas about how education and the economy are, or should be, related. Following on from the success of the first edition, this revised edition covers topical issues of globalisation and looks into the political debate concerning aid to developing countries. It will be of enormous value to those studying, or working in, educational policy in developing countries, international organisations and financial institutions, and aid agencies. (shrink)

This article explores the use of walking interviews as a research method. In spite of a wave of interest in methods which take interviewing out of the "safe," stationary environment, there has been limited work critically examining the techniques for undertaking such work. Curiously for a method which takes an explicitly spatial approach, few projects have attempted to rigorously connect what participants say with where they say it. The article reviews three case studies where the authors have used different techniques, (...) including GPS, for locating the interview in space. The article concludes by arguing that researchers considering using walking interviews need to think carefully about what kinds of data they wish to generate when deciding which approach to adopt. (shrink)

So obviously and blatantly real is the world around us—our own bodies and all things within reach of our senses—that from time immemorable man has tended to give it exclusive status—to feel that things in and related by space are the only realities. Such a belief is adequate for all practical affairs, but philosophers have always recognized that something is lacking in it. The very statement of the existence and reality of the external world brings in a second element: the (...) mind that recognizes and admits it; the agent that by its own consciousness establishes the contrast of internal and external. This mind—the group of all our interrelated mental faculties, conceptions, and perceptions, and our consciousness of them—is definitely not something external, not something in space that can be handled physically, and studied in its mechanical and geometrical relationships. It is completely invisible, intangible, and inaudible, and obviously we neither taste nor smell it. It forms no part of the external world, and yet the very fact that we are conscious of the world is a tacit recognition of the mind that perceives it. An inevitable dualism seems to result between the internal mind and the external world it perceives, between the subjective and the objective. (shrink)

The theme of the third annual Spring workshop of the HUPO-PSI was proteomics and beyond and its underlying goal was to reach beyond the boundaries of the proteomics community to interact with groups working on the similar issues of developing interchange standards and minimal reporting requirements. Significant developments in many of the HUPO-PSI XML interchange formats, minimal reporting requirements and accompanying controlled vocabularies were reported, with many of these now feeding into the broader efforts of the Functional Genomics Experiment data (...) model and Functional Genomics Ontology ontologies. (shrink)

In the ultimate analysis, all philosophical differences are verbal. If by some intellectual X-Ray we could see into the minds of others, and perceive the exact nature of their concepts, we should be force to concede the correctness of their conclusions. The only alternative is that the mental processes—the laws of thought—differ from individual to individual.

Research paradigms are only starting to emerge in relation to art and design practice. Consequently, research design in this domain often employs perspectives and methods developed in other disciplines. This paper traces the development of a proposal that combines theories from cognitive linguistics with graphic design practice. It describes the resulting challenges to and transformations of my long-held assumptions and understanding about graphic design and the communication process. It also outlines the way in which semantic analysis (a method from cognitive (...) linguistics) will be used in conjunction with different forms of visualisation--with visualisation used as a method to generate data for analysis as well as to present findings. Finally, it argues for an engagement by designers with conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory, as a way to facilitate reflection on design practice. (shrink)

To one not philosophically inclined, idealism seems a rather fantastic doctrine—one quite obviously false. The great Dr. Johnson thought he could adequately refute it by kicking his toe against a stone. In one form or another, however, it has existed wherever men have thought deeply on the fundamental nature of mind and of the external world. One cannot go far in a study of the sources of knowledge without becoming aware that the only immediate evidence of external objects lies in (...) our sense impressions. The mind has no way of putting itself in contact with things external to itself except through the five senses. Up to this point there is fairly general unanimity. The difficulty lies in correctly interpreting this fact. (shrink)

Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from a large archive of computer model simulations, a consortium of scientists from 12 different institutions has resolved a long-standing conundrum in climate science—the apparent discrepancy between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics. Research published by this group indicates that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one accounts for: the uncertainties in observations; and the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations. These results refute a (...) recent claim that model and observed tropical temperature trends “disagree to a statistically significant extent”. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets. (shrink)

There are styles in thinking just as there are in dress. Their justification is often as slight, and once a style in thought has been established, it is followed with the same unconscious readiness. The possibility of styles lies, of course, in a lack of fixed criterions. In dress, the choice to a large extent is a matter of taste, and because taste varies from individual to individual and from time to time, styles also change. Although the foundations of science (...) are far more stable than those of taste, they yet have some touch of uncertainty. We live in a relative world, not an absolute one, and thus there is always room for the point of view to shift. We like to feel that we ourselves and the world in general are growing wiser, and thus that while there were errors in the thinking of the past, they are now being rapidly eliminated. The discovery that some philosopher of several thousand years ago held almost our identical views is always disconcerting. (shrink)